


The Rules

by AggressiveWhenStartled



Series: Unusual Efforts [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, But not really a teenager, Domestic abuse is wrong and Joan doesn't do it, Don't worry its not underage, Even when Sherlock is a dick, Explicit Consent, F/M, Fem!John - Freeform, Feminism, Femlock, Genderswap, Joan Watson - Freeform, Joan Watson takes no shit, Post Reichenbach, Sherlock is such a teenager, Yelling, girl!john, offensive language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:11:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AggressiveWhenStartled/pseuds/AggressiveWhenStartled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan Watson didn’t, of course, particularly enjoy being called a bitch, but she preferred it to ‘whore’. Likely because the first was so often a response to her highly satisfying right hook after being called the second. </p><p>You had to be firm when you were a ‘ball-breaking cunt’ who liked to flirt, especially when you followed around Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have the second half up by the end of the week-- I hit a wall on Almost Home and decided I needed to take a break on it, and I do so love BAMFy John genderswaps. Let me know in the comments if I got too lecturey about sexual harassment, or if you disagree with me on my opinions on it.
> 
> UPDATE: Niny has translated this work into French! You can go see it at [FF.net](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9158949/1/The-Rules)!
> 
> UPDATE: This has now been britpicked by Catonspeed and beta'd by HSavinien. In fact, HSavinien went through, totally unasked, and gave me a full chapter by chapter list of all the many horrible typos I'd accidentally left, for the WHOLE SERIES. Because HSavinien is AWESOME AND AMAZING.

Joan Watson didn’t, of course, particularly enjoy being called a bitch, but she preferred it to ‘whore’. Likely because the first was so often a response to her highly satisfying right hook after being called the second. Those had spaced out more over time, coming more often in school, and she tried not to resort to physical violence _quite_ so often now. Her problems could, so often, be solved by a suitably withering look or a quick word with the offender’s superiors.

Sometimes these needed to be combined, like now. She’d asked to speak to Lestrade about one of Anderson’s comments (the little shit could call her Sherlock’s whore all he liked, of course, but he couldn’t do it long and keep his job). Greg had the temerity to say “Come on, Joan, Sherlock’s implied the same of Sally on any number of occasions.”

That had gotten raised eyebrows and a long stare.

“Right, right, you’re right, it’s still not okay, you’re right.”

Joan waited.

Lestrade sighed. “And you are not responsible for what Sherlock says when you’ve never been anything but professional. I’ll talk to him.”

Joan had snorted. “I want it official, not a matey ‘don’t be such a jerk’ over drinks. A member of your force called one of your consultants a whore in front of six officers; not acceptable.”

Greg spread his hands. “I do that and you’ll have an enemy for life.”

“Because we’re already such good pals that he calls me pet names.” Joan crossed her arms. “You can’t let the men on your team treat women they work with like this, Greg.”

Greg wiped his hand over his face. “You’re right, but you know Sherlock makes it harder. How about this: I ream Anderson out unofficially this time, and if it doesn’t help, then I’ll make it official and I’ll have more documented to back it up.”

Joan nodded. “Acceptable.”

“He’ll know you complained.”

Joan rolled her eyes. Greg was a good guy and good at his job, but he put up with too much shit from too many people for the sake of not stirring anything up. It made him the best candidate for Sherlock to bully into letting him into crime scenes, but he needed to grow a damn spine. “I think I can handle it.”

Greg sighed. “I’ll call him in.”

***

You had to be firm when you were a ‘ball-breaking bitch’ who liked to flirt—in a guy, it was jovial but tough at heart, which made you likeable and dependable, but if you were a girl you had to demand respect and follow through on any threats. It was hard, but it was easier than getting treated like shit by people you worked with, or worse, people you loved. 

While Joan wasn’t against violence in certain circumstances (she’d have decked Anderson if they hadn’t been on the job), she didn’t believe in it, for any reason, when it was someone you cared about. This meant sometimes she just had to turn around and walk away. 

That rule included Sherlock Holmes, even when he was being a colossal prick. She was still kicking herself for losing her temper during the Irene Adler fiasco, even if he HAD hit her first (and she had had strong words about that, too; namely “don’t” and “or else” and “I _will_ leave”).

She probably gave him too much slack because she wasn’t completely certain which rules he ignored and which rules he honestly didn’t understand, slack she would never have cut for anyone else. If Sean had hit her (even if he hadn’t been her boss at the clinic), she would have left immediately, and called the police if the circumstances called for it. Sherlock, she gave a warning. He’d gone white, and then tried to bluster about how she was hardly fragile and it wasn’t the same if it was for a case, and she’d repeated herself and gone upstairs. In the morning she’d sat down and explained her rule, and told him he was only allowed to hit her if she specifically gave him permission: if they were sparring or if he really, really needed to for his police work, for example. He was only allowed to hurt her without checking first if they were in immediate danger and there was no other way with a similar likelihood of getting them out of the situation. 

Joan hadn’t threatened to leave over the head in the fridge, or when Sherlock had poisoned the milk and hadn’t told her; Sherlock agreed to all terms immediately.

***

Anderson had been more obstructive than usual at the next few scenes after she talked to Greg, but whenever he’d come close to crossing the line with Joan, the look was all she’d needed and he’d retreated. He’d muttered angrily when she turned her back, but he didn’t say it to her face and she didn’t notice him saying it to anyone else, so she let it go. 

Greg, feeling guilty perhaps, had complimented her work and held his tongue when Sherlock was a berk. Joan privately thought Sherlock could do with a few ultimatums on his behavior at the yard, too, but they were adults and could figure it out on their own. She shouldered him when he crossed the line and as long as she wasn’t obvious about it, Sherlock allowed himself to be reigned in. To a point. He still called them a pack of morons every other sentence, but there were no more comments about extramarital affairs unless he was antagonized.

As they were leaving the most recent murder, Greg flirted: very carefully, but definitely flirting. She’d grinned and tilted her head, hand on her hip, and told him she liked his smile as well.

***

“I don’t understand your rules.”

Joan didn’t look up from her newspaper. “Mine, individually, or mine, member of the unwashed idiot masses?” 

“Both. But in this case individually.”

Joan looked up then, and set her tea down. “I try to be clear with you.”

Sherlock scowled. “And, like now, are extremely patronizing about it.”

She shrugged, leaning back in her chair, and grinned. “I see how being specific and clear can come across that way, and I apologize for hurting you.”

Sherlock looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. “Your therapist taught you that phrase.”

“She did.” Joan didn’t even try to keep a straight face. She’d known he would pull a similar look the second her shrink had suggested it.

“Don’t use it again.”

“Alright.” Joan clasped her hands and set her elbows on her knees, ready for a very long, very patronizing no-really-only-food-goes-in-the-refrigerator discussion. Sherlock narrowed his eyes, crossed his arms, and looked away. She rolled her eyes. This was looking like it would require extra patience. 

“Your rules are inconsistent.”

“Oh?” 

“Anderson has referenced your attractiveness in the past. You told him unequivocally that he could not speak to you that way. Lestrade did it today and you responded positively.” Sherlock steepled his fingers and frowned. “Both believed themselves to be complimentary, both did it with the intent of convincing you to go to bed with them at a later date. Further, you’ve mentioned frustration at men with authority attempting to sleep with women they have authority over. Lestrade, belonging to the police and controlling access to crime scenes and evidence, should fall into this category as well.”

Joan considered. “I complain about women in authority hitting on people, too, and there were several social cues you’ve probably missed. And Greg hasn’t said anything about wanting to sleep with me.” Sherlock gave her one of her own looks; the mimicry was so exact she laughed. “May have missed the cues, then, not probably. And you might be right about Greg.”

Sherlock remained silent. Joan sighed.

“Working with people and the authority they have over me makes things complicated. I’ll accept things from strangers at a bar I wouldn’t accept from someone on the force, or my boss.”

“Whom you have also dated.”

“Yes, and look how poorly that turned out. But I see your point.” Explaining the rules to Sherlock required detail, examples. She felt like a sexual harassment seminar, but it couldn’t be helped, especially since her exceptions were personal instead of something she could just give him a pamphlet on. “The difference is that Greg and Sean honestly like me. They believe I’m capable and act like it. They respect me and make sure I know it. Anderson hates me and wants to use his dick to get one over on you.” Sherlock opened his mouth and Joan raised her hand. “Then there are all the little things that let them know I was okay with it. The—“

“—smiles, especially after Lestrade looks just too long at you, laughing too loudly, yes, I know.” Sherlock stood. “It’s still inconsistent.”

Joan shrugged and picked up her tea. “It is, a bit. I’d like to point out that Anderson led with ‘that jumper would look better on my bedroom floor,’ though.”

Sherlock shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “If I were to, in a professional setting—“

Joan set the tea back on the table. “It’s really better not to assume you’re an exception. You can cross lines pretty quick if it turns out you were wrong.” She paused. “Wait, what? Are you… Is there someone at the yard you want to chat up?”

“I don’t want to discuss it.”

“It’s a bad idea to sleep with our clients, if that’s who it is.”

“I’m hardly as promiscuous as you seem to think; you’re far more likely to have sex with…” He paused. “That was crossing a line, yes?”

Joan sipped her tea again and turned back to her newspaper. “Yes, but since you’re my best friend and I realize that you are comparing our past behaviors and not making a judgment about my character, I’m not offended. Probably shouldn’t say something like that to Sally, though.”

Sherlock made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat and went back to work on what looked to Joan like an attempt to ruin their sugar bowl and table, but Sherlock adamantly felt was necessary to their work and entirely safe. She opened a window just in case.

***

“Lestrade has complimented you professionally seven times, and personally twelve, in just the last fifteen minutes.” Sherlock muttered, lifting a dead finger and twisting the ring from it. They were at another crime scene, and it had been about a month since Greg had dressed down Anderson. 

Joan grinned. “I know.”

Sherlock glanced up through his lashes at her, then back down. “He definitely wants to sleep with you.”

Joan’s grin widened. “I know.”

Sherlock grimaced and went back to work. Apparently dismissed, Joan straightened and moved back, stretching her leg. It didn’t hurt these days, but it was a habit. 

Greg had been totally professional on the job the past few weeks, but as soon as she crossed the tape around the scene, they had been going _nuts_. The flirting tapered off if another officer came by, and started right back up once they’d left. 

Greg smiled as she walked over. She ducked under the tape and he asked her to dinner.

She said yes.

The sex was _amazing_.

***

Sherlock, predictably enough, flipped his shit.

When she came home the following morning (rubbing wrists that were vaguely raw from the handcuffs), Sherlock was in the middle of one of the biggest sulk she had ever encountered and the flat looked like it had been through another drugs bust. She paused in the doorway and looked around, impressed despite herself.

“What’s all this, then?” she managed, hanging up her coat. Sherlock ignored her to screech away on his violin for a few beats before flinging the bow away from him and setting the instrument in its case. Joan wasn’t unsurprised that Mrs. Hudson had been gone when she’d come in.

“You were gone all night, it isn’t safe.” Sherlock bit out. Joan rolled her eyes.

“Yes, and leaving me behind in the slums of London because you’re distracted during a chase isn’t dangerous at all. Luckily, I carry pepper spray, a gun, and have really great lungs.” 

Sherlock stalked forward, looming over her, and she stood her ground, calm. He scowled. “You’re wearing his deodorant.”

She nodded. “Yes I am. Going without smells even worse, but I agree, that man needs to find another brand.”

Sherlock huffed and leaned in closer. “You should have come home and showered here, then there wouldn’t have been a problem.”

Joan laughed, her voice going slightly breathy as she remembered. “Not an option.”

“He has a string of failed relationships and a broken marriage,” Sherlock pressed. “He has children.”

Joan shrugged and walked into the kitchen, forcing Sherlock to back off and move out of her way. “I like kids, and everyone has a string of broken relationships. Anyway, I’m not looking to marry him, we went to dinner.”

“Dinner does not take all night.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. Marathon sex does.” She grinned toothily. “It was fantastic and worth every tantrum you throw. Which, by the way, are completely unnecessary and won’t change my behavior. We’re going out next week, too, and interrupting us with a case won’t work because he will already be at the crime scene if you do.” She rooted through the cupboard and slammed a cup down, almost too hard, then twisted the tap savagely to fill up the kettle.

There was something already in there. She looked.

“…You’ve put leeches in the kettle.”

“It was an experiment that you have now ruined.”

“Was destroying the flat an experiment too? Because it was a clean space when I left that YOU have now ruined.” Joan set the kettle carefully in the sink, exhausted, anger building up as she ruthlessly pushed it back down. “You’re upset because I’m going to be splitting my attention and you can’t run Lestrade off, he already knows you. He knows what you’re like and he won’t get upset when you drag me off for one case too many. You can’t come along on dates and expect to drive him away because he will invite me to leave with him. He’s the one person who will not get angry at _me_ for the shit _you_ pull.”

“He is not acceptable.” Sherlock shouldered her aside and dumped the excess water and a few leeches in the sink, then retreated with it held the kettle against his chest. “Find someone else.”

“WHO ELSE?” Her temper finally snapped, and she was yelling now, throwing her hands up and ready to throw something else, too. “Who will you approve of, Sherlock? You do NOT have authority over me in ANY way, you do not get to decide who I date, and I am going to shag Greg if I want, as often as I want, and you can’t do anything about it!” She stalked out of the kitchen, grabbed her coat, and flung the door open.

Sherlock threw down the kettle. “Where are you going now?”

Joan pulled her arms through the sleeves with a violent yank and thumped down the stairs. “I’m going back to Greg’s and I’m going to ride him straight through the floor, you incessant ass!” She hollered, slamming the door and stalking away. Then she spun on her heel, opened the door again, and bellowed up the stairs, “and you had better have this flat cleaned up by the time I get back, or I am turning straight back around to do it again!” Then she slammed the door shut again, leaned on it, yanked it back open and slammed it a third time for extra measure before angrily hailing a taxi to take her to her brother’s instead.

***

They probably would have talked more about the row if the whole thing with Moriarty hadn’t exploded in their faces. As it was, Sherlock jumped off the roof in front of her before she had a chance to really make up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awkward!Sherlock is awkward.
> 
> So yeah, again, the other half should be up next week, and let me know if you disagree with any of Joan's opinions on workplace flirting haha.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I know I said this would be a two part series, but it's really difficult to go from Reichenbach Fall to happy relationships in one chapter unless your chapters are _really long_. So here is the second chapter and the third is being written now.

Joan Watson still didn’t believe in hitting people you cared about, even when they turned up ginger and malnourished on your front step after forcing you to watch their (apparently) fake suicide and letting your mourn them for three years. 

“You figured out how to split Greg and I apart,” she said instead. 

Sherlock looked like he would have rather she’d hit him. He swallowed. “I came back immediately. The moment I finished. I came home as soon as I could.”

Joan glanced at Sherlock’s arm. His sleeve was soaked in red and is spread whenever he moved his hand. “You didn’t think maybe a quick trip to the hospital might have been acceptable considering you’d waited _three years_ already?”

“Of course not.” Sherlock gave her the look he’d always given her when she’d said something he found to be utterly, incomprehensibly ridiculous. “I’ve been gone _three years_.”

Well. She couldn’t argue with that.

“Get inside.” She moved back from the door, opening it wider. “You’re about to collapse and I don’t want to have to carry you up the stairs.”

Sherlock stumbled inside, dripping blood on Mrs Hudson’s carpet. “You don’t look like you could manage that anymore,” he murmured, leaning heavily against the wall. Joan took his uninjured arm and slung it over her shoulder. “Aren’t you the one always telling me to eat regularly?”

“Was. _Was_ the one telling you to eat regularly.” Sherlock shut up, lips pressed together. Joan sighed. “If you pass out before we get to the top, we’re going to end up right back at the bottom again. Move.”

Joan still had an overly well-stocked first aid kit in the bathroom, since she’d been getting into fights a lot more often than she had three years ago. She wasn’t talking much with Greg and she wasn’t taking cases anymore, even after Sherlock’s name magically started to clear two years ago (three guesses what he’d been doing while he’d been gone. Without her. The dick). Going out after dark, alone, to beat the shit out of opportunistic creeps under broken streetlights was stupid, reckless, and risky, but Joan had been rash even before Sherlock, and she hadn’t gotten better when he’d fallen off the roof of Bart’s. It was one of the few things Greg hadn’t given up on arguing about with her. 

On the upside, she had all the medical supplies she needed when her back-from-the-dead flatmate wandered in with a stab wound.

“Is Moriarty dead?” she asked quietly, setting her last stitch, and tying a knot off at the end. Sherlock chewed absently on some cold toast (it turned out she should have used the present tense about making him eat after all) and laughed darkly.

“Extremely.”

“Good.” Salve, bandage, done. “Go to bed. I’ll take the couch.” Sherlock looked up, startled.

“You don’t want to talk? You always want to talk.” 

Joan shoved him in the direction of the bed. “I’m not going to hit you, but I can’t think about anything except how much I want to right now. Go to bed before I give myself another regret, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

“You’ll kick me out in the morning.”

“I can kick you out now.” Sherlock set his shoulders mulishly and Joan’s fists clenched. “I promise I won’t kick you out without talking to you first. Go to bed and get out of my hair, or I’ll wake up Mrs Hudson with how loudly I’m going to end up screaming at you.”

Sherlock hesitated, but padded softly into the bedroom and shut the door. Joan collapsed on the couch and surprised herself by falling asleep instantly.

She always had done well under stress.

***

A full night’s sleep didn’t make her want to kill him any less, even when she realised the idiot had actually been doing his best not to wake her. At some point during his absence he’d learned to make tea and fried eggs by himself without setting off the fire alarm.

He had not, apparently, learned how to make bacon without setting off the fire alarm. She pulled the batteries out of the plastic casing and slumped into a kitchen chair, her head on the table. Smoke twirled hazily around the flat, and she was very happy she’d never had asthma.

“I apologise.” Sherlock said, standing awkwardly above her.

“For what?” Joan muttered into the wood, “The fire alarm, the smell of burned pig, or leaping to your death in front of me and lying to me about it for three years?”

There was a pause. “…Yes,” he said succinctly, and Joan threw up her hands without moving her face from the table before letting them flop back down in front of her. He made a frustrated noise and tried again. “I couldn’t come back until I’d neutralised the threat on your life, or you would have been dead the moment you walked in front of a window. You, Lestrade, and Mrs Hudson, if you don’t think your life is worth the caution. I had several options planned that didn’t involve lying to you and hurting you; this was the only one that left us both alive when the time came.” He set a plate of mostly okay eggs in front of her, and she stared at them blearily before giving up and eating them. They tasted like rubber. 

She sat silently, doggedly chewing. If she didn’t move, if she didn’t speak, the anger and hurt built over three goddamn years, the shock and fury about finding out it was all a lie, all fake, just a trick… She could keep it in and not hurt him. Sherlock didn’t take her lack of reaction well; he started fidgeting, then backtracking and re-explaining and finally begging, head in his hands, for her to understand. 

“I didn’t break your rules.” He pleaded, pulling at his hair, “I did what you said. You said it was okay. You said I was allowed.”

Joan finally snapped, standing abruptly and sweeping everything off the table with a crash of broken china and jangling silverware, her chair hurtling to the floor behind her. She bared her teeth and slammed her hands flat on the table top. 

“Okay? Allowed? I held your hand and couldn’t find a pulse on cement covered in your blood, Sherlock, you called me and made me watch you fall, you lied to me and _left me behind_ while you went off and saved me like a blushing damsel in distress. You think that’s _okay_? Am I that _useless_ , that _stupid_ , that you didn’t think about how I could _help_ you?” He looked away, guilty, and new, a colder anger built in her gut. 

“You couldn’t have done that by yourself. Who did you go to for help before you came to me, your best friend, your partner, the one who ‘always makes you eat’ and keeps the outside world from being too much and fixes your stupid self-absorbed problems for you? You didn’t do this by yourself, it’s physically impossible, you thought _someone else_ was more useful than a doctor, and a soldier, and a veteran of your own goddamn war, Sherlock. And _what the hell do you think that tells me_?” Joan didn’t flip the table, but only because it would be too cliché, so instead she spun and picked up the first thing to hand. It was a large china teapot, and she chucked it furiously at the dishes in the drainer beside the sink. The resulting shattering crash calmed her, slightly, and she stalked towards Sherlock, flinging the other chair out of her way and breaking it against the stove. “What does that say to me? Actions speak louder than words, asshole, and you can say you’re sorry all goddamn day but _what the hell do you think you were telling me for three bloody years_?”

Sherlock didn’t move, just closed his eyes, swallowed, and leaned back in his chair against the countertop to bare his neck to her like she was going to slice it open for him. The _bastard_. Joan knocked the table out of the way and slammed her hands down on the bench top.

“Don’t you lay back like a bleeding martyr, Sherlock, you overdramatic twat, _who did you go to first?_ ” She screamed, arms to either side of his head, fingers clenched on the counter behind him. He opened his eyes. He looked fragile, with dark, deep circles under his eyes and his too-bright hair limp and tired on his forehead. He hadn’t had any weight to lose, and she could see a dozen half-faded scars peeking around his clothes. Her breath left her in a rush, and she dropped her head to rest against his chest. Stupid, useless tears pushed through and she was crying, leaning against him, chest heaving. She balled her left hand into a fist and slammed it down on the counter behind him, the shards scattered across it jumped loudly. Sherlock gripped the sides of his chair, his knuckles white, and didn’t move. 

“You went to someone else first, before I did,” he whispered. “I thought that was what we were doing. Your rules are inconsistent and I don’t understand them. I tried.” Joan shoved herself away and paced the tiny kitchen, kicking the cupboards as she went. Sherlock remained still.

“You said I could hurt you without asking first if we were in immediate danger. If no other options had a similar likelihood of getting us out of it.” His voice broke, miserable, confused. “You were supposed to go to Lestrade and be happy. I told you to go and be happy.”

Joan leaned against the window. “You also told me you were a fake, and a fraud, and to forget about you.”

“I know. Why didn’t you?”

Joan’s knees finally gave out and she covered her face with her palm, other hand clinging to the sill. 

“This is what you think of me.” Joan breathed. She couldn’t look at him. “You’ve talked. Now get out.”

Sherlock leapt to his feet, panicked and confused. He shook, slightly, as though exhausted from bracing himself for a blow that hadn’t come, only to be faced with worse. “But you only threatened to leave if I didn’t follow your rules, I followed your rules, I did what you asked me to—“

“Get out! Get out of my flat, Sherlock, get out, get out, _get out_!” Her fists met the plaster behind her, cracking it and probably damaging her hands. She didn’t care. “I have my rules so I don’t get hurt and people can’t treat me like I’m less than I am, Sherlock, and yet you have come through loud and clear what you think about me. Get the hell out of my bloody kitchen, and take your goddamn apologies with you!”

Sherlock hesitated, reached for her.

“OUT!”

He left.

***

Lestrade, on the other hand, had no qualms hitting Sherlock when he showed up like a wet cat on his doorstep. After two strong jabs to the face and one to the wound on his arm, Sherlock barely managed a graceless collapse without injuring anything else. 

“Does she know? Have you told Joan? _Does she know you’re alive, you god-awful prick_?” Sherlock nodded, hand on his jaw. Blood pooled in his mouth and he spat on the Lestrade’s front stoop. “Christ.” The fight was gone, and the man just looked tired. He looked down at Sherlock, skinny limbs sprawled on cold cement. “Here, get up, sit down on a surface that you won’t break anything against. You bloody pillock. I can’t believe I’m not more angry at you than I am.” Sherlock removed his bloody coat, revealing a neat bandage underneath. “That Joan’s work?”

Sherlock stumbled inside fell onto the couch. “Yes. She threw me out after.” He pouted. “I think you’ve ripped the stitches.”

“You bleedin’ deserved it. Jesus.” Lestrade brought his hand to his jaw and considered. “I’ll get you some ice. I’m surprised you didn’t break in two when I hit you.” He turned to rummage in the freezer. Sherlock huffed angrily. “So now you’re here to… What? Let me know you’re alive in person? Doesn’t seem like you.”

“You were supposed to move in with Joan. What did you do to her that bolloxed that up so thoroughly? Your things aren’t in her bathroom, there is no sign you visit her regularly. There’s nothing here to imply she comes here. You must have done something.”

Lestrade paused, and then slowly turned to stare at Sherlock.

“Are you bloody kidding me? Really?” Sherlock glared, and Lestrade gaped. “I didn’t cock up me and Joan, mate, you did, when you took that cruel swan dive off the hospital.” 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and scoffed. “So she said as well. Clearly inaccurate—my actions have nothing to do with your relationship, a fact Joan corroborated the last time we fought about you. As you are clearly still enamoured of her, you are just as clearly the one to blame.”

“First, no, just, no, that’s not how relationships work, and second, you bloody idiot, why the hell did you think she liked me so much?”

Sherlock looked murderous. “I was informed, quite loudly, of your many positive qualities. At the time she focused largely on your bedroom activities.” Lestrade continued to stare at him, stunned, and Sherlock began to lose patience and let out an exasperated groan. “You were able to see her and not blame her for my poor behaviour. I wouldn’t be able to sabotage your relationship with cases since you would already be involved in them, etcetera. You were ideal, she said, and she expressly focused on her plan to ‘ride you through the floor’.”

Lestrade laughed, startled, and finally pulled the ice pack out of the freezer to toss it at Sherlock’s head. “Yeah, that sounds like Joan in a strop. And you don’t see a pattern in there anywhere?”

“If you are implying that you are suddenly unable to perform sexually, don’t. You have none of the accompanying symptoms that would indicate—“ 

Lestrade looked pleadingly toward the ceiling. “No, my prick is in perfect working order, _thankyouverymuch_. The reason she liked me was that I wouldn’t try to come between the two of you. Idiot.” He sighed. “I held her up when she shut down for a few months after your death, and God knows I’d take whatever part of her she wanted to share; but she’s been a mess for three years and she doesn’t want me.” He pulled out a beer and fell into the couch opposite Sherlock. “I was only there to take care of what you weren’t there for, and when that was suddenly more than she’d planned on, things just didn’t work out.”

Sherlock tilted his head. “You mean sex.”

“Ugh. Yes. I mean sex. I mean you were her partner and I was her fun on the side. I mean we would shag like enthusiastic, flexible, kinky rabbits and—“

“Yes, thank you, I catch your point.”

Lestrade raised his hands, grinning. “You’re the one fixated on Joan’s and my bedroom activities, Sherlock, not me.” He paused. “Actually that’s a bit of a lie, it’s hard not to fixate when you start thinking about what she can do with her—“

“Yes, _thank you_ , I am suitably chastised, no need to expand upon it.” 

They sat in silence for a few moments before Lestrade leaned over and chucked Sherlock in his uninjured arm. Sherlock looked appropriately appalled. “It’s good to have you back, anyway. I’m glad you’re not dead.”

Sherlock looked nonplussed. “…Thank you,” he managed after a while, and stole Lestrade’s beer.

“Hell, though, I wish things HAD turned out like you’d planned, living with Joan would have been amazing. Of course, I’d never get any work done and I’d probably walk funny after a while, but—“

“ _Yes, thank you_ , Lestrade, _I get your point_.”

***

Joan spent fifteen minutes punching her couch cushions, fifty minutes alternately lying on them and flailing in violent, angry fits, and twenty minutes cleaning up the wreck she’d made of her hands. Again.

Then she spent the rest of the day cleaning up the wreck she’d made of her flat. The flat she had ripped apart because she was upset with Sherlock. The irony of the reversal was not lost on her. 

Everything hurt, which she deserved, really, since she’d spent the morning smashing things around Sherlock’s ears like a deranged madwoman. Shit. She hadn’t hit him, but flinging crockery and coming close to breaking her countertop behind his head wasn’t exactly following the spirit of her rule for all it followed the letter of it, for all she’d attacked Sherlock for similar rules-lawyering.

Christ she was a hypocrite.

Joan swept most of her kitchen into the dustbin and leaned on broom.

 _Christ_ she was a hypocrite. 

She’d been so mad that he’d expected her to hit him, but what the hell was he supposed to think when she was shouting in his face and lobbing tableware? 

Christ. 

Things were almost back to rights (although she would need an entirely new set of dishes, she’d only shards, a plate, and a two tea mugs left) when there was a knock on the door. Apparently she’d driven Mrs Hudson off this time, because no one opened it. Joan sighed and trudged down the stairs.

Sherlock somehow managed to look worse than he had the evening prior.

“What the hell happened to you?” 

He scowled. “Lestrade punched me in the face. Twice.” He paused. “Then I believe he ripped your stitches.”

“Jesus, get in here, I’m going to kill him.” Joan pulled Sherlock through the door and gave him a push up the stairs. “Let me get those fixed.” She followed him up as he mutely climbed the stairs and ghosted into the bathroom. She sat him down and removed her old stitches before setting new ones in awkward silence.

“You’re quiet,” she murmured, touching the ripped skin of the wound back together at the edges. Sherlock twitched the corner of his mouth up.

“I concluded it was best to wait until you had completed sticking me with sharp objects before I attempted to apologise to you again.” 

Joan laughed ruefully. “I should be the one apologising. That violent fit I threw… I’m so sorry. It was unacceptable. It won’t happen again. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Sherlock looked at her quizzically. “You didn’t scare me.”

“Bullshit.” Joan tied off the thread and leaned back to examine her work, briefly flicking her eyes up to his face before they were back on his arm. “You were gripping that chair like you were drowning.”

“I _was_ drowning.” Sherlock frowned. “Lestrade punched me in the face. Twice. Then in my _wounded arm_. He’s an officer of the law. You are the person who has the most right to strike me after my actions, and you didn’t touch me. You don’t shy away from physical altercations, and so it was hardly expected. I had no idea what to do or what was going on. I still don’t.”

Joan ran a hand through her short cropped hair. “I have the _least_ right to hit you, Sherlock, bloody…” She carefully put away her medical supplies, turning to slide them under the sink. “And Lestrade shouldn’t have hit you either. It is never okay to hit someone you care about unless it’s self-defence or if they gave you permission.”

Sherlock paused. “Are you talking about sex again? Lestrade mentioned—“

“Agh, Christ, no, Sherlock—“ Joan scrubbed her face with her hands and walked out of the bathroom. Sherlock followed hesitantly. “Yes, it’s also true for sex, but… Look. I gave you permission to hurt me in an emergency, and you did. I just didn’t expect to be hurt that much, that way, and I…reacted badly. Very badly.” She wandered into the kitchen and scavenged a few leftovers to toss in the microwave for him. “I’m sorry about that.”

Sherlock looked frustrated. “I thought I was…” He blew out the breath he’d been holding and hit his head against the wall. “I thought it would make you happy.”

Joan looked up, jaw practically on the floor. “You thought I would be happy you shattered every bone in your body on the concrete at my feet?” she croaked, aghast. “What the hell?”

“No! I…” he hit his head against the wallpaper again, eyes shut tightly. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I wanted you with me, not off with Lestrade. But I…eurgh!” His hands went to his hair and he pulled. “I don’t… I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you want, and I’m sorry.”

The mundane beep and whir of the microwave broke the tense moment and startled them both. Joan laughed and Sherlock pulled a half smile. 

“Right now, I want you to eat this random pile of mixed up Chinese takeaway, and go to bed.” Sherlock’s smile dropped and Joan held up her hands. “I promise tomorrow is not going to be a repeat of today. I am not going to kick you out after a violent tantrum. I’m… not going to do that again.”

“Ah. A new rule for yourself.”

Joan shook her head. “No, it’s the same rule, just more consistently applied.” She sighed. “How about this. Tomorrow, if you want to, we’ll get your things, and you can stay here. I can only imagine from the state of your coat where you’ve been staying up until now—“

“—Joan it is perfectly obvious from the state of my coat exactly where I’ve—“

“—and if you decide to stay here permanently again, well, that’s fine too.”

Sherlock remained against the wall, silent, then pushed off and sat at the table. Joan smiled and slid the leftovers over to him.

Sherlock regarded them with dawning horror. 

“…Did you actually mix leftover fried rice with sweet and sour chicken and lo mein?”

“Shut up and eat it.”

“You actually took a fork and mixed it all together.”

“Eat it.”

“I don’t see how I’m supposed to be encouraged to eat when you punish me for obeying by feeding me off-smelling culinary experiments in inedibility. You couldn’t have had three small piles instead?”

“It would have heated unevenly if I hadn’t stirred it half through, just _eat it_.”

“Well, we couldn’t have had that, cold food is so unappetising, I agree—“

“Cold rice is a health hazard, shut up and eat your food, or I will call Mrs Hudson up here and let her cry on you.”

Sherlock, scowling, lifted a bite without looking at it and chewed. Audibly.

Joan rolled her eyes and went to unwrap the dustsheets from Sherlock’s old bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this was like an exercise in how many synonyms for "throwing breakable shit" I could come up with.
> 
> Update: Oh man I am writing chapter three and I have just gotten to the sex and that shit is _really hard to write_. I am so bad at writing sex. This is going to come out sounding like an instruction manual with overblown adjectives in it, I am sure.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has probably the dumbest sex scene in the history of sex scenes, these two are such doofuses, why did I tag this explicit from the start I could have just faded to black and zoomed in on a flower or something.

The yard wasn’t exactly happy to have Sherlock, but between pressure from above (Joan refused to thank Mycroft for anything these days, but he was occasionally useful) and the horrible press they’d already received when Sherlock was finally proved innocent and genuine publicly, they were having trouble coming up with reasons to keep him out. 

It was a strange mix of familiar and uncomfortable. Joan had berated and guilted Mycroft into saving Greg’s job after Moriarty ripped everyone’s lives apart, but she’d stayed away because she could only hurt Greg professionally by showing up. Anyway, really, she hadn’t been the one who solved the crimes, was she?

Not that she wasn’t absolutely integral to Sherlock’s process. First day back and she was already wondering how the hell he’d managed to function as an independent adult without her.

“Will you be resuming your romantic activities with Lestrade now that I’ve returned?” the great fluttering idiot called from the opposite skip. Joan went red as every eye on the scene surreptitiously turned towards her. Standing in rubbish, sorting out scraps of the victim’s clothing from takeaway containers, and surrounded by co-workers—exactly where she wanted to have this conversation.

“Sherlock. Not now.”

Sherlock scoffed. “This is hardly thought intensive work, Joan, even for your level of intellect. I’m sure you can multitask. I’m equally sure Lestrade would be amenable to continuing your relationship; the last we spoke he referred to ‘enthusiastic, flexible, kinky rabbits’ as a metaphor for your—“

“Sherlock, put a sock in it before I break your stitches again,” Greg exploded, jogging over angrily.

Sherlock looked affronted. “My concern for my partner’s relationships hardly merits—“

“ _Sherlock_ ,” Joan managed, braced against the edge of her skip and leaning angrily out of it, “you are not fooling anyone, I know that you know, that bringing up sex at work is Not Good. I don’t know what you’re trying to get me to do or punish me for, but you are going to shut up about it now and we are going to discuss whatever your actual goal is when we get home.” Sherlock shut up and pouted.

Greg turned to glare at their audience, who turned back to their work with varying levels of chagrin. 

“Surprised the freak has to ask,” Anderson whispered, too loudly, at Sally. “He’s at the crime scene, isn’t he? She has to be shagging someone to have gotten their access back.” Sally looked at him, disgusted, and took a wide step away. At least she was developing some taste.

“Anderson,” Greg started, but Sherlock’s head had snapped in their direction like a shark’s, and his eyes were narrowed. 

“Yes, Anderson, do educate us about your experience keeping your job with sex acts. Tell me, has the yard found out how you passed those classes for your credentials? It’s so interesting what one can find out with alcohol and few pointed questions, when one has crashed a university staff party.”

Anderson’s face paled. “You lying, freakish ponce—“

“Right,” Joan hopped out of the rubbish she’d been wading in, and headed for the edge of the scene, “we’re done here. Sherlock, is there anything else you need before we go?”

“Unless you have miraculously recovered the entirety of the clothing remains—“

“Nope, we’re going to let Anderson do that, since he’s now run off the consultants taking care of it for him.” Sherlock made an outraged sound behind her and scrambled out of his skip.

“He’ll destroy the evidence!” he complained, jogging to her side as she ducked under the tape.

“You don’t even need it, you’ve figured everything out already but you thought the stains in the fibres would be _interesting_.” She stripped off her filthy coverall and dropped it in a bin. Sherlock, for once having used one on a crime scene, did the same.

“If you knew that, why did you consent to sift around hip deep in refuse?” Sherlock asked, shaking his coat on. 

“Because you asked me to, you great pillock.” Joan smiled and grabbed her own jacket and headed for the main road. “But we are not staying here and getting into a ‘who’s the bigger slag’ fight with Anderson.”

Sherlock was silent for a moment, then, “We could try to contact Dimmock in the future instead.”

“And then Greg’s crimes won’t get solved.” Joan shrugged. “I’ll file an official complaint about harassment later. But for now, we’re leaving.”

Sherlock went.

***

Joan was still at the artificially fantastic part of living with Sherlock again. Kidneys in the custard dish tucked up against the butter, was just nostalgic enough to make her smile. She gave it about a week before constantly being forced to throw out perfectly good food due to cadaver contamination brought her back down to earth.

Until then, though, Sherlock seemed to be taking full advantage. 

“So tell me why, exactly, you decided to embarrass me in front of the yard today?” she asked, shucking her coat and moving to the kitchen. 

Sherlock frowned. “It was a miscalculation. I didn’t account for all the outside factors of my actions.” Joan paused, coat half off, before slowly turning back around so Sherlock wouldn’t see her face. He snorted. “I don’t need to see your expression to know you’re rolling your eyes at me.”

“Just apologise like a normal person and I won’t have to,” Joan shot back, laughing. “Miscalculation. So what were you trying to do before you realised most of our colleagues at the yard aren’t as scientifically minded about sex as you are?”

Sherlock was in the kitchen now, making a mess most likely. Joan sighed and flopped down into her chair, setting aside the detritus from the leaf decomposition experiment. 

“You tend to be more brutally honest when you are angry with me. I wanted as unfiltered a response to my questions as possible.”

Joan rolled her eyes again, not bothering to hide it. “I’m more of a jerk when I’m mad at you, not more honest. I don’t think things through and I say the first thing that comes to mind; and I’m more likely to say them if it will piss you off. That’s not honesty, that’s being a dick, and I don’t like doing it.”

“I’m hardly—“

“--Fragile, yes, I know. It’s not about what you can take, Sherlock, it’s about how I should act.” She shrugged. “Will I end up with Greg again? Maybe. Probably not. I can’t say I’ll never get tempted and spend the night if we’re both single, but we’re not really suited for an actual relationship. And it can only hurt us both at work.”

Sherlock clanked worryingly loudly in the kitchen.

“Don’t break anything in there, I just bought new dishes.”

“I am not the one with a track record of breaking your dishes, Joan.”

“Bullshit. You have the longest track record of breaking things of either of us.”

Sherlock continued his clanking and Joan ignored it. 

Nostalgic. Joan tried to keep the pleased smile of her face but decided Sherlock had likely deduced it already, so when it broke free she left it. It was nice, not living in an empty flat anymore. To hear Sherlock going about his day in the other room. She rummaged around in the pile of clippings beside Sherlock’s chair to find the majority of the day’s paper, then attempted to read it while ignoring the surgically precise holes left after what looked like three unrelated sentences from the article on sheep farming in New Zealand had been clipped out. 

The nutter.

There was a crash and a startled yelp from Sherlock’s direction. 

“Do you need help or medical attention?” Joan called, trying to find an intact story.

“Not at all. Everything is under control.”

“Right.”

Joan turned the page.

“Actually, it would be a help if you came and caught the scarabs while I try to hold the remainder of our cupboard out of the sink.”

Joan grinned. Nostalgia.

***

The next morning when she stumbled blearily from her shower and into the kitchen, Sherlock stood, brought his hands together, and said, “You are confusing me.”

“Yeah?” Joan yawned, wiped at the water dripping out of her hair and into her eyes, and rummaged about for the tea.

“Lestrade said I was your partner, and he didn’t mean it professionally. Irene called us a couple. Mycroft drops insinuations about us all the time.”

“Forget them, Sherlock, they don’t get us.” Joan set the kettle on and took the last clean mug from the drainer. 

“ _I_ do not ‘get us’. “ He scowled and snatched her mug away. Then the little shit tossed it into a bowl of dirt he had been expressly forbidding her to touch. “Are you in love with me?”

“Sherlock, what?” She blinked, and then opened the far cupboard to dig for another mug. “You’re not normal and, really, neither am I. Stop trying to figure out which box we fit in.” The one she found was cracked, but not enough to be a problem. She pulled it out and turned to the kettle.

Sherlock groaned in frustration. “I don’t understand what you _want_. You won’t tell me and I can’t deduce it, you’re too contradictory.”

“I want this.” She shrugged and dropped in a teabag.

“Stop patronising me and ignoring me!” Sherlock yelled. He slammed his hands down on the table, making the glassware on it shudder. “You clearly _don’t_ or you wouldn’t keep going elsewhere!” Joan stared, tea forgotten.

“Sherlock, no one can be everything for—“

“I ask and you laugh, and fob me off with verbal circles, I observe, and you dart in too many directions, I don’t understand and you won’t just _tell me_. The only time you have come close is when we are arguing, and the biggest fight we’ve ever had was because you thought I didn’t trust you or need you, and that I’d gone to someone else for the help you wanted to provide. Tell me, Joan Watson, what you think I deduce from _that_ , and tell me why you are the only one allowed to be upset!”

Joan swallowed, and Sherlock dropped back into his chair, picking up and throwing down random portions of his experiments. “I am atrocious with emotions. I can’t figure them out, and I need your help because I can’t just ignore them, they’re yours and that makes them important.”

“Sherlock,” Joan said softly, setting her cup back on the bench top, “you want me to ask for things you can’t give.”

Sherlock dropped his head back and actually growled. “You’re talking about sex! Just say you’re talking about sex!” He flung whatever he’d been fiddling with into the living room, where it bounced and knocked something else over, and then stood back up, slamming his chair into the cupboards. “It’s always about sex with people, unless they say they’re talking about sex, and then it’s actually about upsetting me or power or loneliness or jealousy. And now you’re feeling vulnerable because you’re in your bathrobe in the kitchen and I’m talking about sex, when _you’re the one talking about sex_!” Sherlock practically threw the chair back in under the table and angrily stalked away.

Joan turned off the stove with a vicious twist of the knobs and stomped after him. It was more difficult than she would have liked in bare feet with the dangerous mess that covered the floor. “Fine! It’s about sex! I need to shag _someone_ , Sherlock, and it’s not going to be you!”

Sherlock turned to her, furious. “But why _not_?” he shouted. “You want me for everything else, you spend all your time with me and you build your life around me and then as soon as _sex_ comes up you go out and find _anybody_ else! _What is wrong with me_?”

“ _You don’t want to_!” Joan yelled at him, throwing up her hands. “You don’t understand sex and you don’t _want_ to shag me and I don’t want to be your bloody chore or experiment!”

“I’ve wanted to shag you for the past four bloody _years_ ,” Sherlock bellowed.

Joan gaped. “Why the hell didn’t you _say_ anything?” she hollered at him.

“Because I didn’t know what you wanted!”

They stood there, glaring and breathing heavily, for a good minute after that.

“This is the stupidest argument we’ve ever had,” Joan managed, “are we really fighting because we both want to sleep together and don’t want to be the one to say so?”

“I think it’s clear that we are,” Sherlock said, voice strained. “I’m going to kiss you, I think.”

“You think?” Joan said, indignant, and Sherlock crowded her against the wall, slid his knee between hers, his tongue into her mouth, and it was _amazing_.

“Show me what to do,” he breathed in her ear, and she grinned.

“Deduce it.”

He laughed, adrenaline still racing from the fight, and licked a long stripe up her neck, eyes half-lidded, laced their fingers and pinned her hands above her head. She made a sound in the back of her throat. “Oh my God, you remember the marks from the handcuffs,” she moaned, eyes closing.

“I couldn’t _not_ remember the handcuffs.” He said lowly, “I couldn’t get them out of my head. It was surprising,” he continued, “it doesn’t seem like you to be the one wearing them.

“Who said I wore them the whole time?” His breath hitched, and he pressed closer.

“Tell me,” he said dangerously, “what you want.” Joan leered. 

“I want you to get down here where I can reach you, you beautiful beanstalk,” she growled. She stretched up to run her teeth along his jaw, and he moaned. “I want you to fuck me. Here. On the floor. Can I hurt you?”

“Hmm?” he managed, distracted.

“Do I have permission,” she repeated, lips on his neck, “to hurt you?” 

He sagged, breathless. “ _Yes_ ,” he said faintly, and Joan hooked a leg behind his knee and pushed. Sherlock, surprised, immediately lost his balance, and sent them both crashing to the floor.

“Ng,” he muttered, “Ow.” 

“Don’t be such a baby,” Joan said, catching his arms and crossing them above him, holding him down without needing the reach he had. He inhaled sharply as she kneeled astride him, and she laughed. “Have you done this before?”

“I’ve never been held down by someone about half my height, no,” he drawled, and Joan bit him, once, in retaliation. Sherlock managed a breathy grunt. She put her tongue to his ear and he almost whined.

“Have you ever had sex before?” she clarified, not moving her mouth, and he arched up against her. 

“Not as such,” he panted, “but I’ve done a great deal of research.”

Joan pulled back. “Sherlock Holmes,” she exclaimed, jubilant, “you’ve been watching porn!” 

“Of course I’ve been watching porn,” he replied, cross, “You already know I spent three years sitting alone in run down motels wishing I was with you, of _course_ I watched porn. I’m not an asexual eunuch simply because I delete my browser history.”

“If you didn’t steal my computer it wouldn’t matter if I deleted my history or not,” she replied blithely. He smirked and bucked, and she let him flip her on her back so she should reach up under his shirt and pull it off of him. “You know real life sex usually isn’t much like porn.”

“Mm,” he replied, pulling the ties of her robe loose and folding it open. She gasped as the cold air hit her. Sherlock grinned.

“I’ve also read tutorials.”

Joan froze, and then started laughing so hard she curled up on herself. “ _Tutorials_? Oh, god.” She couldn’t breathe. “Tutorials? Were there helpful diagrams?” Sherlock’s smile, the best thing about him, twisted his mouth up as he fought to be peeved and lost.

“As a matter of fact, yes. They were…inconsistent in that helpfulness, however. One suggested a technique from a movie.”

“Oh my God, you read a tutorial on the cunnilingus thing from American Pie. You read an internet tutorial on the… the twister. Was it The Twister? I think it was something like The Twister.” Joan was cackling now, like a witch at Halloween, and she couldn’t stop. 

Sherlock sat up in her lap and waved vaguely. “Perhaps. I deleted it. It didn’t seem terribly realistic.”

“No, no it wouldn’t,” she managed, gasping between giggles. “It wasn’t a very realistic movie. It was an awful movie, in fact, you’re better having deleted it.”

“So I assumed,” he replied, leaning back and looking down at her. She shivered, caught, but couldn’t stop sniggering.

“So you’ve watched porn, and you’ve read Internet tutorials.” 

“Yes.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you.”

“No,” he admitted, stroking up her ribs, “but so far it doesn’t seem too difficult.” He smirked at her gasp as her giggles cut off. “You’re very expressive, and you seem to react well to the same things I do.” His fingers drifted across her breast, and she choked and arched up against his hand.

“How—“ She cut off as he dragged his thumb back down. He chuckled. “How do you know what you react to?”

“Honestly, Joan,” Sherlock leaned down over her and trailed his fingers across her hipbone, then down, _in_ , too hard at first, but he gentled quickly as he read her face. Joan couldn’t think. “What do you think I was _doing_ when I was watching porn? Spreadsheets?” He grinned, because that’s exactly what she thought. “Recording the factors and reactions involved and creating bar graphs?”

“Admit it, you made a spreadsheet.”

“I admit nothing.”

There was a joke in there somewhere about spreading him on sheets, but she was having trouble with her own name at the moment. Apparently the tutorials got something right, because he curled his fingers up and brushed gently against her, inside her, and she scratched her nails down his back hard enough to leave marks, lights sparking behind her eyes. 

“I’m, nng, I’m pretty sure you have, have,” she spread her thighs as far as she could with his knees bracketing them. “External. Genitalia,” she finished, panting. He laughed, having no trouble following her train of thought.

“No, I have no experience touching like this.” He gave a wicked little twist inside her and she let out a sound that was almost embarrassing, “This I’m mostly learning as I go along. But this,” he drew the fingertips of his free hand gracefully, lightly, up her side and to her neck, then dragged his palm back down. It was almost reverent, and she felt herself unravelling with it. “This is quite familiar, albeit on dissimilar topography.” He leaned into her, fingers carding into her still damp hair, breath hot on her ear. His other hand continued to press two fingers up inside of her. “And you already know I’m a very skilful mimic.”

He touched his tongue to her ear and look the lobe into his mouth, apparently exactly as she had his, and she bucked up against his fingers and screamed.

“Oh, my, God,” she managed, a moment later. “Ohmygod. Tutorials.”

“One has to be selective,” Sherlock replied smugly, and Joan growled and pushed him back, dropping him to the floor again, knocking the air from his lungs in a huff.

“So, you self-satisfied, lovely thing, you like to be gentled,” she muttered, hopping on top of him, “I can be gentle.”

***

At some point they made it to a bed and proceeded to wreck it, finishing up lying twisted on the bare mattress and tangled in the sheets. One of the pillows somehow ended up stuck in the light fixture.

“So.” Joan said, face down and unable to move, “Apparently I lied. I’m complete pants at gentle.”

Sherlock’s hips and neck were ringed with read marks that would very soon blossom into vivid bruises, his hair was a tangled mess where she’d pulled it, and his forearms, as he’d said it, sported a “very interesting pattern of rug burn”. As soon as he recovered, he was probably going to go experiment on them.

“You managed it roughly 34% of the time.” Sherlock panted as she slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him close, “The remaining 66% was equally enjoyable, I assure you.”

She snorted into the mattress. “Yeah, I was worried you weren’t having a good time when you were moaning like a cat.”

“Oh? Mrs Hudson left the building twenty minutes into you repeatedly screaming my name.”

“That is not my fault. That was your online tutorials. That was _filthy_. There should be laws, there probably _are_ laws.”

“That one actually came from a rather well-researched adult film. I admit, I wasn’t certain how it would go over.”

“Anytime you want to find out with something else, let me know, I take back everything I ever said about wanting to be an experiment.”

Sherlock chucked, then groaned. “Unfortunately I am currently unable to move very far. I will demonstrate my natural aptitude at every skill I attempt again at a later date.”

“Mm.” Joan agreed. “Although I shouldn’t encourage you, you’re such a smug twat about it. You’re going to be strutting around for weeks after this. You’ll probably have a sign made and wear it to work.”

“I don’t strut.”

“You strut _all the time_.”

“I don’t strut, and well done not encouraging me, I’ve lost count of how many times you came.”

Joan turned her head enough to look at him and raised an eyebrow. “No you haven’t.”

“I haven’t,” he agreed, gleefully, “I’m fantastic.”

She smiled. “You are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I've had a really positive reaction to this story and I'm going to make it a series, you are all fantastic, thank you so much for all the great feedback and ego-boosts! If you have this story bookmarked, though, you should probably bookmark the series instead because I've finished this part.


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